Speaker Bios (back to Event Summary)

Sabine is currently Head of Indirect Tax at BASF. Sabine brings experience from previous roles at BASF. Sabine Prechtl holds a Diplom-Finanzwirtin in Steuerrecht @ Fachhochschule für Finanzen Herrsching / Fiscal School of Bavaria. She has a robust skill set that includes Corporate Tax, Tax Law, Tax Accounting, Tax, Income Tax and more.

Heidi’s specialties include: Business Support; Working actively with key account managers of different business lines and from various regions on Global contracts, structuring the offer to minimize tax leakage. In addition: tax planning, tax accounting, training, digital and innovation, indirect and direct tax.

Daniel Jakobsen is an experienced tax professional currently serving as the Head of Group Tax at Falck since April 2021, where responsibilities include indirect tax and ERP technology. Prior to this role, Daniel held various positions at Deloitte Sweden from October 2018 to April 2021, including Senior Manager specializing in indirect tax and SAP tax architecture. Experience also includes working as a VAT Specialist at Vestas and serving as a VAT Officer at Skatteverket from June 2011 to February 2017, focusing on VAT and special income tax on non-residents. Daniel holds a Bachelor of Economics degree with a specialization in Tax Law/Taxation and Business Law from Lund University, completed in 2011.

With nearly 20 years of experience, Ingeborg works at Cargill as their Global Tax Operations Lead, with a heavy focus on the Tax Operations and anything related to Process, Data and Technology for Tax. This includes the design and improvement of (centralised) tax compliance processes, assurance the tax aspects in ERP deployments and upgrades are managed, provision of tax analytics tools and further the operational excellence results in the wider tax space.

Yang is working at Schneider Electric on: Validation of new Group worldwide flow design from a tax perspective (by working closely with Global Supply Chain and Customs teams); Management of Group worldwide strategic projects, ie. e-Invoicing, e-Commerce, Circular economy, Finance Transformation, tax engine; and Support to worldwide tax managers, ie. tax audit, complex international indirect tax issues.

Based in Amsterdam, Manus is Senior Tax Director at Cisco, where he leads the International Indirect Tax team. Throughout his career, Manus has been dedicated to building the highest-performing, innovative tax functions leveraging cutting-edge people talent and IT technologiies. Since joining Cisco in 2005, he has held leadership roles within the Global Tax & Customs team, with responsibilities spanning Indirect Taxes, Direct Taxes, and Transfer Pricing across multiple regions, including Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Canada, Asia, and ANZ. While based in Singapore, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, Manus managed global teams and drove strategic tax initiatives across regions and business functions, such as Supply Chain, R&D, M&A, Sales, New Business Models, and Finance Solutions. Prior to joining Cisco, Manus worked as an International Tax Lawyer at KPMG and EY, specializing in EU VAT law and Indirect Tax IT Solutions.

Christo is currently a VAT Leader Europe at Coherent Corp. Previously , he was the Head of Indirect Tax at Boehringer since end of 2018. Prior to taking charge of BI’s VAT and excise duties, Christo had already dedicated 13 years to tax consulting in Big 4 Companies and an in-house position at DuPont always with strong focus on indirect tax and customs and significant experience gained in leading VAT dedicated teams in a shared service centre environment.

Rico serves at Indirect Tax Process & Technology Manager at Syngenta.

At Booking.com, Ha is responsible for driving and executing the strategic Tax Transformation Program with wins and impacts for the Tax Department through the rolling out of:
- AI Strategy and Enablement in Tax - responsible from strategy to solutions.
- Tax Products & Strategies
- Data - formed and lead a data team
- Technology
- Automation
- People & Processes.
She has over 13 years International experience in tech giants.
Her career in a nutshell: Chartered Accountant -> Indirect Tax -> Tax Technology, AI & Data Analytics

Nora joined Trane Technologies (formerly, Ingersoll-Rand) as the EMEA Indirect Tax Leader of the group on April 2017, after more than 11 years within the Indirect Tax department of the Big 4 (i.e. Deloitte Belgium, Deloitte Hong Kong and EY Belgium). In July 2019, she was promoted to EMEA Assistant Director. Within the company, she manages the EMEA VAT team based in Brussels and Dublin. She is responsible for VAT planning & VAT Compliance in EMEA as well as Indirect Tax technology in EMEA, APAC & LATAM. In her role, she manages the indirect tax implications of any restructuring project (e.g. spin off, transformation and integration) and puts in place a number of operational improvements. Nora is involved in cross-functional projects with Direct Tax, Transfer pricing, Trade compliance, the businesses and other corporate functions such as Record to Report, Order to Cash, Internal Audit, etc.

Raul is a highly motivated Indirect Tax professional, spending the last 18 years working for large US multinationals (Apple, AMD and TE Connectivity), since 2008 with focus in Indirect Taxes & Compliance, gaining during these years a strong knowledge in the European VAT Law and its application in SAP. He has a proven track record of success in internal and external Audits, as well as counting with an outstanding success in building solid internal and external relationships, working together with and leading multicultural Finance and Tax Teams from US, Asia and Europe.

He has lived and worked in Spain, Germany, Ireland and Switzerland over the last 21 years. Fluent in Spanish (mother tongue), English and German.

“Junior” is a seasoned intrapreneur and results-driven Global Senior Finance & Tax Executive with over 25 years of experience in Fortune 500 companies and top-tier consulting firms. Recognized as a strategic leader, he has driven multinational financial and tax transformations, led high-performing multicultural teams, and delivered measurable impact across diverse industries, including FMCG, Technology, Energy, and Agribusiness in Europe, the USA, and Latin America.

He has a proven track record in building global structures and functions, such as a Global Center of Excellence and Global Indirect Tax function, generating massive savings.

Gorka Echevarria, the Global VAT Lead at Lexmark, is based in Geneva, Switzerland. He was previously the EMEA VAT Manager at DXC Technology and prior to that the Global Supply Tax manager at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. He has been TEI´s EMEA Indirect Tax Committee chair for the period 2017- 2018. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the International VAT Monitor for which he also regularly publishes articles.

Henritta Amponsah leads the Group Indirect Tax function at Colt, where she is responsible for global indirect tax operations and compliance across EMEA and North America. She provides strategic business advisory and project leadership, particularly in areas of international expansion and risk mitigation.

Henritta brings extensive experience in indirect tax planning, with a strong focus on reducing VAT exposure and enhancing operational efficiency through process simplification and automation. Her approach combines technical expertise with a practical understanding of business needs, enabling her to deliver value across diverse markets.

Henritta is ACCA-qualified and has a solid foundation in accounting, which supports her ability to align tax strategy with broader financial and operational goals.

Lorraine has been working at Stryker for almost 6 years. In her current role Lorraine led a VAT compliance transformation project at Stryker by introducing tax technologies, automation & streamlining the end-to-end process. She is a Certified Public Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser. Having started her career in tax consultancy Lorraine moved to industry to specialize in VAT over 12 years.

Samir is leading the indirect tax team at the world's largest manufacturer of computer monitors and TV panels, representing leading brands like Philips, AOC, and Envision.

Here is my brief bio:  Baran Sari is a seasoned IT Program Manager at Dell Technologies, leading cross-functional teams in delivering global tax technology solutions. With over 18 years of experience in ERP systems and system integration, he ensures that tax compliance changes are implemented by IT on time across platforms like Oracle and SAP.

Simran is Senior Group Indirect Tax Manager at Just Eat Takeaway.com

Karina has more than 15 years experience in Indirect Taxes (including big4 and in-house) with a strong focus on Data and Technology. Favourite topics: Data scraping, Data validation, RPA, Tax Automation, Processes standardisation, Data Reporting, DAC7, CESOP, VAT Numbers validation, etc.

Marta Pankiv leads the global tax function at Tricentis, a US tech company. She is an international tax and transfer pricing leader with over two decades of practical experience on a managerial level in-house and in various jurisdictions at PwC and Swiss multinational group. Her specialties include transfer pricing, M&A taxation, and tax risk management in Europe, NORAM and APAC regions. Dr. Marta Pankiv is also a guest lecturer in the Executive Program in Transfer Pricing at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, a member of IFA - International Fiscal Association, and regularly speaks at international tax conferences and publishes in professional tax journals. Her book published by IBFD - Contemporary application of the arm’s length principle in transfer pricing - was cited in the 2018 Tax Court of Canada decision on transfer pricing. She holds a PhD in Taxation from the Vienna University (WU) and LL.M. in International Tax Law (WU).

Louise leads the Indirect Tax team at Skyscanner, covering VAT, GST, Digital Services Taxes, and Withholding Taxes. A Chartered Tax Advisor with 16 years’ experience in advisory and in-house roles, she now focuses on developing a Commercial & Tax Operating Framework to provide guardrails for Commercial and Legal teams while supporting geo-expansion. Alongside this, she leads work on indirect tax process automation and audit-ready data traceability for Digital Services Taxes. Outside work, Louise enjoys hillwalking — including summiting Kilimanjaro in 2022 — dance, and life with her German Shepherd, Axel and is currently planning her wedding for July.

Remco is currently responsible for running globally the Tax Operations within Blue dot. Blue dot is offering different AI driven Tax and audit solutions running on their online platform. The most known is the VATBox VAT recovery Solution, but Blue dot also offers solutions to analyse data for Employee Benefits (wage tax), Corporate Income Tax and Policy Audit on Employee expenses. Before joining Blue dot, Remco worked as the EMEA VAT lead at PPG Industries and before that worked as a tax lawyer at Baker & McKenzie.  Remco is registered as a certified tax advisor in the Netherlands.

Oleh is tax pro with 13+ years' experience in international tax, transfer pricing, and indirect tax. He specializes in digital platform taxation. He has an LL.M. in tax law from Lund University.

At Hitachi Energy, Keiko is responsible for implementation of tax engine in 60 countries alongside S4/Hana leading internal and external teams. She is leading global indirect tax matters with complex goods movements. She is also involved in post S4 implementation process centralisation and improvement through working with other streams and Finance stakeholders.

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